


we shall have spring again

by aletterinthenameofsanity



Series: wait 'til you meet my little sister [3]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Susan, Eldritch, Emerald City, F/F, Female Luther Hargreeves, Gay Edmund, Horror Elements, Lesbian Lucy, Neverland, Spoiler Alert - Freeform, The Problem of Susan, dark au, dude the pevensies taking control of their destinies is my shit, i might have killed aslan, the pevensie siblings become eldritch gods, whoops, woo hoo i love writing these kinds of stories
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-07 05:00:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20303854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aletterinthenameofsanity/pseuds/aletterinthenameofsanity
Summary: This is not a metaphor. This is not an allegory. This is four kids- four full-grown adults- being told that their lives are useless, that the kingdom they built is not their legacy to hold onto. That the families they made and loved and worked for they are not allowed to keep.Narnia is not heaven; this is their home, which they have built and fought for and died for.Aslan rips them from this world, declares it anathema for them to return, and they could just let it sit, let themselves wallow in the lives they are now doomed to in the bodies they have been shoved back into-The legends will say that Aslan made a very foolish mistake when he banished the Pevensies from the kingdom, and they will be right. The Pevensies would have been content to rule their kingdom until the end of their lives, building an empire and bringing justice to the victims of the White Witch. They would have died heroes but not legends.In their quest to return to Narnia, the Pevensies learn about the possibilities of magic. Of the existence of worlds beyond Aslan’s creation. Of the lies of the great lion’s benevolence.They return to Narnia powerful, and godly, and very, very angry.





	we shall have spring again

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from C. S. Lewis.
> 
> Alright, so my last "Problem of Susan" fic was decidedly more about the ways for humans to develop and deal with loss and create their own kingdoms. This one is far more...actiony. And magicky. And it was so much fucking fun to write this, even if it doesn't have the same long-lasting emotional and philosophical impact as "long and happy was their reign" did.
> 
> Also, this is not where I expected my genderswap!Hargreeves series to go, but go it did so...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, uh, hi. This is a bit horror-esque, a bit fairytale, a bit just me having all of the fun in the world. Hope you all like reading it as much as I liked writing it!

_To the glistening eastern sea, I give you Queen Lucy the Valiant. _

_To the great western woods, King Edmund the Just. _

_To the radiant southern sun, Queen Susan the Gentle. _

_And to the clear northern skies, I give you King Peter the Magnificent. _

_Once a king or queen of Narnia, always a king or queen of Narnia. _

_May your wisdom grace us until the stars rain down from the heavens._

When Peter, Lucy, Susan, and Edmund topple out of the wardrobe and into bodies they haven't inhabited in years, it would be easy to dismiss their story. To send them into some utopian epilogue, where they are returned to their lives in Britain without a second thought. To just let them revert back to being children again. To paint this story as an allegory for a good Christian story about dreaming about heaven.

But that'd be a false story, based in false ideas.

Narnia is not heaven; this is their home, which they have built and fought for and died for. They have put every single drop of blood and sweat and tears into their kingdom for the past fifteen years.

This is not a metaphor. This is not an allegory. This is four kids- four full-grown adults- being told that their lives are useless, that the kingdom they built is not their legacy to hold onto. That the families they made and loved and worked for they are not allowed to keep.

This is four adults with their bodies shrunk and their scars erased and, in Lucy's case, readjusting for the weight of an arm that she lost in battle years ago. This is three rulers who were ripped away from lovers and spouses and Consorts and one that will be doomed to a lifetime of never being able to fall in love because here, in this world, men die for less than kissing another man's lips. This is one mother losing her son to another world, doomed never to see him again.

Aslan rips them from this world, declares it anathema for them to return, and they _ could _ just let it sit, let themselves wallow in the lives they are now doomed to in the bodies they have been shoved back into-

But Aslan forgets one small detail. These are not helpless children, stranded in a world that is not their own- these are Kings and Queens, who have studied the Deep Magic and fought monsters untold by any mortal and destroyed goddesses. They are Just. They are Gentle. They are Valiant. They are Magnificent. As children they fought one tyrant who tried to control the fate of Narnia. It's going to be very hard- some might even say impossible- for them to let this fight lie, to let yet another tyrant dictate the fate of Narnia.

So they they turn their gazes on the wardrobe, which holds wood that can step between worlds and show them magic untold.

The legends will say that Aslan made a very foolish mistake when he banished the Pevensies from the kingdom, and they will be right. The Pevensies would have been content to rule their kingdom until the end of their lives, building an empire and bringing justice to the victims of the White Witch. They would have died heroes but not legends- their disappearance has lifted them to the status of fairy tale, near the status that Aslan holds in Narnian legend.

In their quest to return to Narnia, the Pevensies learn about the possibilities of magic. Of the existence of worlds beyond Aslan’s creation. Of the lies of the great lion’s benevolence.

They emerge back into Narnia seven hundred years before they ever enter it in another story, with only three hundred years passing between their disappearance and their reappearance, and they are not the same Kings and Queens that left Narnia. They return to Narnia powerful, and godly, and very, _ very _ angry.

-

In this world, the Pevensies do not let their kingdom, the one they built with shaking, bruised fingers, be taken from them. They do not let their thrones fall to ruin, let Cair Paravel become a distant memory and a pile of stones. 

They arrive at Cair Paravel to find it currently ruled by Queen Raia the Fair, the descendant of Susan’s son Leor. The palace is still intact, but the Telmarines are invading. There is no one dancing through the Great Hall- instead, Raia is dressed in battle armor and trying to keep her country from being overrun.

Which is something that the Pevensie siblings are not willing to let happen. They won't let their Kingdom, so carefully saved and cultivated and protected, fall to invaders.

The Telmarines will lose against the Golden Rulers of Narnia, now powerful and mighty in their own magic and skill. The whole world will lose against the Pevensies.

These no-long-children who love Narnia with all they have, who are tired of letting tyrants believe themselves to be heroic. They lived through the bombings in London before they arrived in Narnia. They saw the damage that the White Witch wrought on Narnia.

But let's also not pretend that this isn't a partially selfish thing as well. They need Narnia far more than they want England, want this world for their own. They do not want to let go of the kingdom they call _mine. _

Other armies, other nations- they try to conquer and devour Narnia. So the Pevensies devour Narnia's enemies in return, splattering blood of armies and thousands of soldiers over Narnia's battlefields.

-

When they return to Narnia, they are different. Something Deeper, something powerful, something _hungry_.

After they return Narnia into the shocked clutches of Queen Raia, they turn to their own adventures. Their own destinations. Their own universes.

Edmund travels through a rabbit hole into Neverland and falls in love with a boy named Caspian, who was kidnapped away from the Telmarines at a rather young age. He ends up creating a boat out of enchanted wood and sailing across the portals between worlds with Caspian, who he ends up marrying in another world, one where there is a deep forest that Edmund blends right into, what with his new appearance and all. Edmund’s skin is rough and his hair dark like tree bark, and he is said to drop leaves from his clothing wherever he goes. He wears a crown of living thorns in his hair and dances with the dryads.

Peter is currently ruling an Emerald City of his own invention, presiding over a floating court amongst the clouds of his world. He is said to be able to fly, that his hair is made of golden feathers, that his body can soar above his created world. His eyes are bluer than the clearest Northern sky and his crown is made of whisps of clouds that float against his brow. His blade floats against his side, not needing a belt to hold it in place, and everywhere he goes, a breeze can be constantly felt around him.

Lucy is playing hero and villain to a thousand worlds that she travels through, eyes glimmering with sea water and her hair woven with ribbons of moving water. Her crown is glimmering ice in her hair, and every step she takes leaves behind rivers of water.

And Susan is still here in Narnia, goddess and protector, lips painted blood red with knee-length skirts and nylons underneath, her crown of flames on her raven hair and her quiver on her back. Her very skin shines radiant with sunlight, and her wife, the daughter of a star, wears her own shining crown around her head.

Susan is still Queen, even if the main leadership of Narnia passes through Raia's line. She is High Queen, to the radiant southern sun, with a crown on her head and a bow in her hands and her name made horror story to those who would stand against her.

-

“Was it worth it?” the great lion asks, three hundred years after the Pevensies first arrived in Narnia.

Susan looks at him, hurricane-eyed with blood lips and fire dancing in her hair and a crown of golden flames on her head and that quiver still strapped to her back, and she doesn’t dignify him with a nod. “Of course it was,” Susan says, looking at the dead armies of the Lady of the Green Kirtle, at the kingdom she still defends long after her siblings have left to found their own worlds using power far greater than the Deep Magic. This is her world now, not Aslan’s. She is the goddess of Narnia, gentle and mighty and more powerful than Aslan could ever dream. “We saved the world.

“But at what cost?” Aslan says, and Susan snorts, raising her bow to his eyes.

“Not much of one," she answers simply. "Just the head of this world's tyrant."

“That won’t kill me,” Aslan says, voice simple and not afraid, but he should be afraid. He should be very afraid.

Lucy has gone further into the Deepest of Magics of the four of them, but Susan has gone plenty far enough. She has picked up on the most important, basic concepts and exchanges of power involved, especially the ones relating to godhood.

Susan Pevensie knows how to kill a god. It’s simple and as easy as speaking the words of Unmaking, of striking just the right spot in the corporeal form of said god. She learned these directions from a woman in the oldest world to still exist, a woman so old she no longer carried a name.

So she whispers the Words as she lets loose the arrow, and she slays the lion who named himself omnipotent, unchallenged god of the world he created.

"Rot in whatever hell you believe in," she whispers to the corpse of the god who ripped her from her kingdom away from her. “I will not let you take away the worlds of those I love. I will not let you take Narnia.”

Then Susan laughs, bright and dangerous and oh so gentle, and the dryads kiss the blood from her skin as she devours the lion.

-

_ Curiosity killed the cat_, the legends will say.

_ Whose curiosity? _ The people ask. _ What cat? Momma, does this have something to do with that old tale about the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve and- _

_ Shush, child,_ the storytellers say, _ it’s just a riddle. A metaphor. A saying. Narnia has a protector goddess in Susan the Gentle. We are safe from cats and tigers and lions._

-

They ruled their kingdom for fifteen years. They rule these new worlds for far, far longer, until no one can remember a time in which they were not ruled by the Pevensie siblings.

They ride trains in every world that has them, and they don't die. They can't die. They _won't_ die.

The four siblings that tumbled through a wardrobe and then were forced back through it after twenty years in a kingdom of their own are now gods and goddesses in thousands of universes. 

Edmund is still Just. Susan is still Gentle. Lucy is still Valiant. Peter is still Magnificent.

But they are sharper, now. They are more powerful. They are everything that Aslan never would have let them be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be about Lucy and Lena Hargreeves. Hope you all stick around for it!

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment if you liked or want a continuation!


End file.
